The Video Game Revue

Assassin's Creed, Super Mario Galaxy

Amidst the current flood of new releases, I've been trying to confine myself to the essentials. In the spirit of that, I want to talk about some of the very best games that I've been playing lately.

Assassin's Creed is fucking intense. I was expecting it to be like Prince of Persia (the modern ones, not the classics) meets Metal Gear Solid, and that turned out to be fairly accurate, although there's also a stealth assassin quality of the game that touches on Tenchu, and an open world quality that's not unlike Grand Theft Auto. Any way you cut it up, Assassin's Creed is at home alongside some of the finest games made this decade to date.

Leading up to the launch date I'd read that the controls were clumsy, and there is some truth to this, but that doesn't pose much of a problem for me. Both Prince of Persia and Metal Gear Solid feel similarly "sluggish," but it's a matter of design: these games are meant to play with a more technical feel--think of how Soul Calibur compares to Kingdom Hearts. Overall, I like the controls the way that they are just fine.

Assassin's Creed is extremely immersive and has that addictive "page-turner" quality to it where there's always just one more bit of the adventure that you want to finish before putting it down. I've only played maybe eight hours of the game so far, but I absolutely love it. For everything that Assassin's Creed does poorly or wrong, there are easily three other things that it excels at. In a weird sort of way, this game reminds me of what Spider-Man 2 (the game, not the movie) could have been if it wasn't nearly so dull and repetitive.

I have to admit that upon arriving home with Assassin's Creed in-hand, I had something of a dilemma: I'd also purchased Super Mario Galaxy at the same time. I've looked forward to both games for a while, and in recent times I'd been more excited about Assassin's Creed then Super Mario Galaxy, but on finally facing the critical juncture where I had to play one or the other first, it was my curiosity for the new Mario game that won out.

The first few hours of Super Mario Galaxy have been excellent. It's very much in the same vein of Mario games as Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine. In fact, if you thought that Mario Sunshine was pretty good aside from the over-emphasis on the water nozzle device, you'll find Super Mario Galaxy right up your alley. There is one thing to be aware of, however: Mario Galaxy is quite a head trip.

I mostly say that Mario Galaxy is trippy because of how often one finds oneself running around upside-down and at other odd angles, which is due to how the game plays with gravity and sudden shifts in perspective. While this took more than a few moments to get accustomed to (during the process of which I complained to my wife that Mario Galaxy was giving me a headache), it's also this aspect of the game that makes it so refreshing. If you're like me, you watched the trailers for Mario Galaxy a year ago and got excited over how funky and freaky it looks; now that the game is here, I'm happy to report that it lives up to that hype.

Super Mario Galaxy adds greatly to the health of the Nintendo Wii, but what it doesn't do is rescue the Wii from it's current status as a GameCube 2.0. Where are the third party titles? I want to see much more from the likes of Atlus, Capcom, Konami, and Square-Enix. Let's see some developers capitalizing on that install base! I love the Wii, and I love Super Mario Galaxy, but the direction of that console has to change if it wants to compete with the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Just a little aside there.

Ace Combat 6. Fucking... wow. I've never really given the Ace Combat series the attention that it deserves. Fritzkrieg is a big fan, and I did buy Ace Combat 5 under his recommendation. It's a fantastic game, but I got kinda busy and, yeah, I'm sorry to say that I never finished it. I also never got around to picking up Ace Combat Zero because, well, I never even finished Ace Combat 5. Still, I'm trying to redeem myself with Ace Combat 6, and I'm about half done the single player campaign now. I hope they did a good job on the online multiplayer--I haven't tried that feature yet, but I plan to. The fact that this is out for Xbox 360 also blurs the line somewhat between the Xbox and the PlayStation camps, which is a good thing... for the Xbox side, that is. (Ditto on Devil May Cry 4 for Xbox 360.)

On the PSP I'm having a lot of fun with Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles. At first I was absolutely stoked to get it, but I thought it was going to be a compilation release including a remake of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. As it turns out, that's not the case: Dracula X Chronicles merely includes a straight port of SotN as unlockable content, as well as an unlockable straight port of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. The main game itself is a remake of Rondo of Blood, which I found very disappointing because it follows the challenging arcade-style Castlevania format rather than the exploration-driven quest-style format that has made Castlevania so great in recent years.

However, I came around and have started really enjoying Dracula X Chronicles. One reason for this is because the game isn't overly challenging. Beating each level does require playing it multiple times and enduring some disheartening setbacks, but the levels themselves aren't very long, and there are many secrets to discover that help in the struggle. Once I started to get the hang of it, Dracula X Chronicles became a little more exploration-based and a lot less tedious; it's a far cry from the likes of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, but it's still a good Castlevania game. And the inclusion of Symphony of the Night is definitely a welcome thing, although I haven't unlocked it yet.

An older PSP release that I only started playing recently also caught me off guard: Final Fantasy. I expected it to be more of a port of the WonderSwan version (which was ported to the original PlayStation as part of Final Fantasy Origins), and in places it certainly looks like one, but a lot of work has been done to retool this game for the PSP format. The visual style may offend some purists, but I think it looks very much like a classic JRPG. The game system has been changed somewhat too--for example, spells use an MP system which is consistent with the Final Fantasy series as a whole, but totally unlike the system used by the original Final Fantasy. Again, purists may object, but I appreciate the change. I've seen enough of both the original Final Fantasy and the WonderSwan versions, which is why I dreaded cracking into this latest version, but it actually ended up feeling fresh and new to me.

As for PC games, I thought about getting Quake Wars: Enemy Territory, and I thought about getting Call of Duty 4, but I have neither. Right now it's still all about the Orange Box and World of WarCraft. Xzi finally hit 60! My wife, Sunny, also hit level 60... for the third time, that is. Her second alt is a frost mage and she seems to love playing one.

Oh yeah, one final note: Guitar Hero III. Hell yes, but damn those guitar battle levels are hard.

posted by Parappa @ 9:15 PM